


i follow the heartlines on your hand

by blackkat



Series: Cracky KisaObi AUs [5]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Avatar & Benders Setting, Avatar Obito, Family, Light Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-24
Updated: 2018-09-24
Packaged: 2019-07-16 13:10:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16086779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackkat/pseuds/blackkat
Summary: “How did you know this was here?” Kisame asks curiously, though he doesn’t hesitate to shadow Obito as he starts climbing.I'm the prince of the exterminated nation that was responsible for building this place, Obito doesn’t say. “I read,” he answers instead. “There are scrolls about this place.” Also technically true, though the plans he found didn’t mentioned anything about these stairs.Kisame chuckles, dragging his fingertips over the rough stone. “Like some kind of warrior librarian?” he asks, sounding delighted by the idea.“Or something,” Obito mutters.





	i follow the heartlines on your hand

 “The island?” Kisame says, glancing out at the bay, then back at Obito. “Sure, I can take you there if you want. I don’t think there's anything out there, though.”

Obito tries not to shift nervously, tries to keep his face set in non-suspicious lines. Asking the fisherman he’s known for _maybe_ a day to haul him out to a mist-shrouded island in the middle of a haunted bay isn't the best thing to do, but it’s not like Obito has a _choice_. He can't swim that far, and there's no way to steal a boat.

“You don’t have to wait for me or anything,” he says, because he’s been in town long enough to hear the whispered stories. No one stays near the island longer than they have to. “Just leave me out there, I’ll be fine.”

But Kisame chuckles, light and amused, and crouches down to start untying his boat. “Either way,” he says easily, “but it’s a long way back, and it’s probably not the best place to swim.”

Obito doesn’t tell him that he’d probably drown halfway back if he tried; he wasn’t raised near water, and he’s only learned to swim through necessity. Waterbending is a distant dream at this point too. If he can't find _something_ on the island, though, it won’t matter that he can't get back, since he’ll have failed anyway.

In the town behind them, there's a shout, there and gone a moment later. Obito wants to curse, wants to duck forward, but he doesn’t let himself. Panic is a dead giveaway, and he’s better trained than that. Carefully, deliberately, he steps down into the boat, sinks down to sit cross-legged with his pack in front of him and his staff resting against his leg as Kisame leaps in without fear and then pushes them away from the dock. The back of Obito's neck itches, but he doesn’t pull his hood up, either, leans forward to check that his bag is shut securely like it’s a casual motion and not meant to hide the scarred side of his face.

“Got a side you want to land on?” Kisame asks cheerfully, setting the oars in the water. Obito very carefully doesn’t watch his arm muscles strain with the first pull, though his mouth goes a little dry.

“Either,” he says, tries not to make it too short. He can't pick out any voices that are louder than others approaching the port, but paranoia is hard to shake. The mist that covers the bay is thick, though; once they get out into it no one should be able to see them, regardless of where they land. “Just—anywhere on the island.”

Kisame lifts a hand to a woman on the shore, then goes back to rowing, long pulls of the oars sending them through the water faster than Obito would have thought possible without bending or engines. “Not many people want to go out to the island,” he says, and bright eyes settle on Obito with strange intensity. “Where did you say you were from again?”

Talking to him last night in the inn was probably a mistake. Obito breathes through the urge to dive out of the boat and says, “I didn’t.”

Instead of getting offended, Kisame just chuckles, turning his eyes back to the town falling away behind them. “Sorry, sorry,” he says lightly. “I'm just curious. There's supposed to be an old Fire Nation temple somewhere around here, and most people think it’s down the coast a ways. Not a lot of visitors to this place.”

Obito presses the pad of his thumb to the insignia carved into his staff, right beneath the rings. Like a fan, and the memory of it in color is all too clear, tattered hangings desperately maintained. Izuna hung them everywhere, like he was trying to keep the memory of the royal family alive, trying to keep the memory of the Fire Nation as a whole alive.

“It’s supposed to be close to the Spirit World,” he says, because that at least is better than an association with the Fire Nation.

Kisame's movements falter for half a second, then resume like nothing happened. He drops his eyes, chuckles, but it’s rougher than before, forced. “And you still want to go?” he asks. “Most people would avoid it for that.”

Turning his face into the faint breeze of their movement, Obito breathes out. Grips his shakujō, the metal cool beneath his touch in the evening chill, and—

There's a feeling. Something looming, something waiting. The mist is closing around them, but ahead of them the island looms, a green-dark shape with craggy cliffs tumbling down into the water, curtained with green. They sweep down into a narrow gorge, so densely overgrown that Obito can't see more than the entrance, but he can feel it, heavy against his skin. _Here_ , something whispers in his head. _Here, here, here_.

“I need to see it for myself,” he says, which is the barest bones of the truth.

Kisame's grin is sharp in the grey-white gloom, full of teeth, but his expression is all amusement. “You're a bold one,” he says, chuckling.

Obito doesn’t tell him he’s been terrified since he slipped out of the old palace, since he left Izuna in the middle of the night with no idea what he was doing but the knowledge that he _needed_ to help pounding in his blood. If he was bold he wouldn’t be on the run, trying desperately to hide from the Earth Kingdom and its soldiers, the Air Nomads, the Water Tribes. The whole world has forgotten what used to be, with a hundred years to let the knowledge fade, and they don’t _want_ to remember. They don’t want Obito to remind them.

Kisame is watching him curiously, Obito realizes when the silence stretches too long, but he doesn’t say anything. Just glances at the shore, checking the rocky beach, and takes them closer in silence except for the pull of the oars. Letting out a careful breath, Obito glances up the gorge, to where the cliffs disappear into the mist, and wonders how long it will take him to find the old temple. Hopefully not too long; if he can't make it by sunset he’ll have to wait for tomorrow’s sunset, and that’s longer than he wants to spend in one place, even if that place is an island boasting a legion of horror stories to keep people away.

A few yards from the shore, Kisame racks the oars, then jumps out of the boat, grabbing the side and pulling them the rest of the way in. Obito waits until they're at the sand before he climbs out, too, ignoring the splash of his sandals in the cold water.

“I meant it about leaving me here,” he says, when Kisame makes to drag the boat up onto the beach. “I can find my own way back.”

Kisame looks at him for a long moment, that strange intent that caught Obito's attention so easily in the inn last night, and then chuckles.

“You looking for the temple?” he asks instead of answering.

Obito hesitates, but—he can feel the sun setting, the curl of fire buried deep in his soul settling like embers preparing for the night. He needs to move quickly.

“Yeah,” he admits, and pulls his pack on, then picks up his shakujō. “It should be at the top of the gorge.”

“Might be hard to get there in the dark,” Kisame says, and pulls a two-handed sword from its rack on the side of the boat. He slings it over his back, buckling the sheath on, and hauls the boat up onto the sand.

Obito looks away from the flex of his muscles, the broadness of his bare chest, and if his mouth is dry—well. He’s eighteen, and he’s spent most of his life living with a half-mad prince in a ruined palace. Kisame's attractive. Obito isn't exactly used to that.

“I need to get to the temple before sunset,” he says, “so hopefully we won't be traveling in the dark.”

Kisame chuckles, apparently catching the plural, and ties off the boat above the high tide line. “Lots of strange things come out at sunset,” he says, grinning, and there's something strange and a little unsettling in his eyes.

Because he’s never learned when to back down, Obito meets them anyway, holds his gaze evenly. “Then we’d better get moving,” he says and Kisame laughs.

“You're not scared of getting pulled into the Spirit World?” he asks, but when Obito starts for the trees he follows without hesitation.

“The spirits have other things to worry about here,” Obito says grimly, which _should_ be true, but he isn't sure all of them will agree. Hopefully it won't come up, because there's no way to fight a spirit, especially when Obito knows firebending and _maybe_ a bit of airbending if he doesn’t end up blowing himself off a cliff again.

“Let’s hope so,” Kisame says, though he doesn’t exactly sound put out. He glances through the trees that loom on either side of them, dripping ferns and moss, and says, “Not much of a path.”

Maybe not to him, but Obito can see it with startling clarity, like a ribbon of light unfurling under their feet. It doesn’t lead straight up the gorge, but twists to the left about a quarter of the way through. Obito can't tell where it ends after it vanishes under cover, but there's a pulse of sharp certainty in his chest that that’s where they need to go.

And then, further up the gorge, there's a shout.

Panic flares, and Obito curses, throws himself forward into a run, leaping protruding roots and vaulting outcroppings of stone. There are voices shouting orders, a tremor in the earth, and Obito doesn’t have to look to know they're Earth Kingdom soldiers. They likely landed on the far side of the island, and Obito curses himself for not expecting them, for not keeping himself hidden. He’s been running from the Earth Kingdom for _months_ now; he should know that he’s never safe.

But there are footsteps echoing his, a beat behind him. Kisame catches his arm when a stone turns under his foot, hauls him up and back onto his feet, and Obito glances at him, entirely caught off guard.

“You can still go back,” he says, hesitating at the curve of the path. “Get back to town and—”

Kisame chuckles. “I'm kind of noticeable,” he says, a little bashfully, though his grin is still all teeth. “They’ll take one look at me and realize I was out here with you. Besides, I'm not all that fond of the Earth Kingdom.”

Most people in the conquered nations aren’t, even in outposts like this one, Obito knows. He breathes out, scrubbing a hand through his hair, and then grimaces, giving in. “All right. Come on, it’s this way.”

“What?” Kisame asks, surprised, but he follows when Obito plunges into the trees. The edge of the cliff rises ahead of them, but Obito can see the light of the path, the twist where it vanishes into what looks like solid rock, and he lunges for it, vaults the last tangle of bushes and branches and gets his hand on the stone. Thin, he thinks, and he hasn’t learned earthbending yet, but that’s easy enough to tell. The light slides upwards, but not quite straight up the cliff face, and Obito tracks it with his eye for a moment, judging the path, then grabs a fall of thick vines and hauls them up. Beneath them is an opening, and he laughs, waving Kisame through.

“Better than climbing,” Kisame says, amused, and slides in, ducking his head to fit. Obito follows, carefully settling the curtain of greenery so it looks undisturbed. There's a flight of rough-hewn stairs rising through the stone, with light filtering down through small slits in the cliff, and Obito knows, instinctive, that it leads up to the temple.

“Let me go first,” he says quietly, slipping past Kisame. If this is anything like the temple near the Fire Nation palace, the chamber he needs will be in the belly of the temple, hopefully close to where the stairs emerge.

“How did you know this was here?” Kisame asks curiously, though he doesn’t hesitate to shadow Obito as he starts climbing.

 _I'm the prince of the exterminated nation that was responsible for building this place,_ Obito doesn’t say. “I read,” he answers instead. “There are scrolls about this place.” Also technically true, though the plans he found didn’t mentioned anything about a chamber beneath the temple or these stairs.

Kisame chuckles, dragging his fingertips over the rough stone. “Like some kind of warrior librarian?” he asks, sounding delighted by the idea.

“Or something,” Obito mutters. “I’d probably have given my guardian a lot fewer grey hairs if that was all.” He’ll never forget the way Izuna practically broke down the first time Obito accidentally used airbending instead of firebending; he’d thought Izuna was going to do something drastic, or maybe lock Obito in the palace so no one could ever find him. even after he’d calmed down, anything…extra that Obito did was met with fear. Not _of_ Obito, but _for_ him, always.

Obito regrets leaving, regrets that he couldn’t stay and make sure Izuna never worried again, but he didn’t have a choice.

The symbol carved on the door at the top of the stairs just makes him even more certain of that.

“I guess the squad out there wouldn’t be offended by a librarian,” Kisame agrees, and then his steps falter, stop. There's an indrawn breath, but Obito doesn’t look back, just hopes that Kisame won't have as dramatic a reaction to his secret as some of the people he’s met and steps forward, laying his hand against the quartered circle inscribed with the symbols of the elements. He’s not a fully realized Avatar, not even close, but—

The Avatar is balance. That’s what Izuna always told him. and balance isn't about one element or another, it’s about _all_ of them. Obito’s always had the four elements inside of him. Learning to use them is just how he’ll eventually bring them out.

He breathes out, closes his eyes, and the island is close to the Spirit World, tangled up in it, rich with its power. It sings to something inside of Obito, bright and light and warm, and he touches that feeling, calls it up. Not the Avatar State, but—maybe the beginnings of it.

Blue-white light blooms, curling down his scarred arm, bringing the markings to life with a hum of power. The glow sinks into the stone, limns each careful carving, fills the stair with light, and there's an answering hum deep in the stone. The seal splits down the middle, and soundlessly the doors swing open, sending that blue-white light washing over the room behind it.

“Oh,” Kisame says, breathless, but Obito can't look back. He steps inside, and the weight of age and power is greater here, heady and heavy and full of resonance, like a note struck against his bones.

The room is long, wide, filled only with columns of stone. At the far end is a wide window, perfectly framing the setting sun, and rays of red-gold light turn the pool of water beneath the window to fire. There's a sphere of glass half-submerged in the pool, silvered and mirror-bright, and Obito takes one step forward—

Sunset, but over a balcony instead of the sea, light spilling over the edge of the caldera to strike a slumped figure seated on the floor of the twin temple to the one on the island. Obito's breath catches, tangles painfully in his lungs, and he stops dead, unable to even think about moving.

That faint sound is enough. The man’s head snaps up, his dark eyes widening, and Izuna comes to his feet in an instant, reaching out.

“ _Obito_ ,” he says, and there's desperation on his face. His hair is unbrushed, and his clothes are wrinkled, and Obito _aches_ for what he did to the only father he’s ever known.

“Izuna,” he says, but it’s not his voice—something greater, something deeper, a hundred thousand voices speaking at once across a great distance.

Izuna's expression twists. “No,” he says. “No, please, just—give him _back_ , I don’t—don’t take him away. Not for _this_.”

Obito wants to reach for him in return, wants to throw himself into Izuna's arms and tell him he’s the same person he’s always been, that being the Avatar doesn’t _change_ anything, but—

There's a crash, a rumble. Izuna twists, falling back, hands coming up as fire sparks, but it’s not fast enough. The doors of the temple slam open, rattling on their hinges, there's a man framed in the opening, wearing the blue and white of the Water Tribe. Behind him is another soldier, a second, a third, and Izuna's expression goes dark and furious.

“Tobirama,” he spits.

“Izuna,” the Water Tribe chief answers coolly. “I've found you at last. Retired from vigilantism to become a mad hermit, I see.”

“I’ll show you just how _retired_ I am,” Izuna says, and fire curls around him as he whirls forward, the perfect form and flow of a master bender. Water meets him, a whip-swift surge that snaps out to block the flames in a burst of steam, and Tobirama twists around another flare, summons ice, drops—

The last rays of the sun sink over the edge of the horizon, and the full moon is heavy and bright and burning in the darkening sky.

“Your time has ended,” Tobirama says, as cold as his ice, and he traces steps that Obito has never seen before, hands sweeping out. There's a _pull_ , like the tide, like the moon, and Obito cries out a warning as energy surges, _shifts_. No one seems to hear him, and he can't _move_ , can't lunge to intervene even as Izuna shouts, a note of panic to it. The flow of his bending stops with a jerk, all of his limbs trembling, and Obito snarls a denial, fights to throw himself at Tobirama, but there's no chance.

Slowly, painfully, Izuna sinks to his knees struggling like he’s being held by an invisible force, and when he hits the floor he’s gasping, almost crying with frustration.

“ _No_ ,” he snarls.

Tobirama opens his eyes, grim-dark gaze and expression set. “Bloodbending,” he says. “You should take it as a compliment, Izuna, that I consider you dangerous enough to resort to such a thing. You’ll be better served if you stop fighting. All I want is the boy you raised.”

Izuna's breaths are coming in pants, desperation buried in his eyes as he strains. “ _Never_ ,” he snarls. “Obito is the Avatar, I won't let you end that in the name of your twisted _balance_ —”

“Order is balance,” Tobirama retorts, and the soldiers with him move forward, one in Earth Kingdom green and the other in Air Nomad orange. They pull Izuna's hands behind his back, chaining him tightly, and then haul him to his feet.

Izuna snarls, throws himself to the side, but he’s pinned, held tight as he twists. He jerks around as far as he can, wild eyes finding Obito where he’s frozen to the floor of the temple, and he says, “Obito, don’t you _dare_ come for me, don’t you dare, keep fighting—”

Tobirama gags him, tying the cloth behind his head, and then the light falls away from Obito's feet. He plunges into darkness, the image of the other temple gone, and in its place a glowing figure rises. Long brown hair, black eyes framed with violet, white robes marked with magatama around the collar, and he looks at Obito with something like grim sadness in his eyes.

“Descendant,” he says, and his voice carries like they're in some vast chamber.

“Indra,” Obito breathes, and swallows. The first firebender, founder of the Fire Nation, the first of the royal family, and Obito has seen paintings but nothing that would ever explain why Indra is _here_.

Indra inclines his head, then reaches out. He cups Obito's face in his hands, then breathes out, almost a sigh.

“The light is fading,” he says. “We only have a short time.”

Obito glances past him, even though he can't see the temple anymore. There's fury and panic pounding through his blood, and he demands, “Was that real? Is Izuna—”

“Captured,” Indra confirms. There's a glow, red rising in his eyes, and the darkness around them resolves into a mountaintop, a temple with the wind howling past them in icy gusts. “I wanted you to see the stakes have gotten higher, Obito. The Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes are allied, and their influence grows. The world isn't meant to be united under one ruler. That’s the not the way of balance.”

“I—you're not the Avatar,” Obito says, bewildered. Indra _isn't_. Obito would know; he read every piece of information the palace had on the Avatar, and surely that would have been mentioned _somewhere_.

The curve of Indra's smile is rueful. “I'm not,” he agrees. Steps back, turns, and green shimmers, solidifies. A man steps out of the light, features an echo of Indra's, and he smiles at Obito with a warmth that’s tangible.

“Ashura,” Indra says, and pulls him down into a hug, tight and familiar. Ashura laughs, hugging him back, and then straightens, turning his gaze to Obito again.

“ _We_ became the Avatar,” he says, like that explains anything.

“Two spirits,” Indra confirms, and reaches out. Fire and water swirl around his fingertips, and Ashura reaches back, earth and air to join Indra's elements. At their touch, blue-white light blooms, then settles.

“Balance,” Obito says, looking between them.

Ashura nods. “We were pitted against each other in life, but after we died, we realized what we had done,” he says, and his smile is sad. “So we sent a piece of our souls out, to bring things back into balance.”

“It falls to you now,” Indra says. “False balance is more dangerous than chaos. Put it right.”

“We’ll help you,” Ashura promises, kinder than Indra's sharpness, even if he looks just as serious. “Whenever we can. But the world needs to be returned to how it was. No one element should rule the others.”

Obito has always known that—it’s why he left Izuna to begin with. Hearing it said straight out like that is _heavy_ , though practically crushing, and he has to breathe through the weight of it.

“I don’t know if I can,” he says, a confession. “It’s been months and I still haven’t learned airbending—”

Ashura lays a kiss on his forehead, gentle, comforting. “You’ll find a teacher,” he promises.

Obito's breath shudders out of his lungs, and he presses a hand over his face, scrubs at his eye. “I just want to save Izuna,” he whispers.

“The balance is—” Indra starts.

“You will,” Ashura interrupts, and his dark eyes are steady. “All things come in time. Izuna once knew Tobirama well. Their history will keep him safe. Focus on realizing the truth of your power, Obito. Then you can save everyone.”

The wind howls past the mountaintop, and in the distance the sun sinks beneath the horizon, vanishing completely. Indra and Ashura vanish like ghosts, and Obito is suddenly falling, wrenched back into his body. He staggers, catches himself with his shakujō, and—

Kisame shoves him back, an Earth Kingdom soldier’s sword colliding with his in a spray of sparks. He twists, and a surge of water like a rising wave washes through the room, strikes the soldiers, crackles into ice. _Waterbenders_ , Obito thinks, but there's no time to parse it, no time for anything but the understanding that Kisame is fight _for_ him, and that’s enough.

There's fire burning in Obito's heart, anger and desperation and underneath a diamond-hard core of blazing determination, and Obito breathes, _reaches_ —

The fire comes, a dragon’s breath, the heat of the sun brought down to earth. For a hundred years, there have only been a handful of firebenders left, but Obito learned from the strongest of them, the last true prince of the Fire Nation.

There's no way a handful of earthbenders would ever be enough to stop him.

 

 

“So,” Kisame says cheerfully, polishing the last of the blood from his sword. “The Avatar, huh? I thought with the firebenders all dead the cycle was broken.”

“We’re not all dead,” Obito says without looking up from where he’s sorting through the books on the Avatar in the temple’s library. It’s a painfully small pile, but better than nothing. “Just mostly.”

Kisame chuckles, rubbing a thumb over the gills on his neck. “Like people who are spirit-touched,” he says.

Obito wasn’t going to ask, but—that makes sense. “Yeah,” he agrees with a wry smile. “No wonder you were willing to come to this place.”

“I was born here,” Kisame confirms easily. He slides the sword away, sets it aside, and glances out the wide window at the starlit sea. “My family’s mostly at the bottom of the ocean, though. I just like humans better than fish. Easier to bend when I'm on the surface, too.”

Taking a slow breath, Obito glances up. “Are you going to be okay going back to the town?” he asks. “If someone who saw us together—”

“You've only mastered firebending so far, right?” Kisame asks, and his eyes are steady, certain. Obito can't quite look away. “You need a waterbending teacher, and I don’t know if you're going to find many but me who will help you.”

It’s true. Most of the waterbenders Obito has met follow Tobirama with perfect loyalty, and if Kisame doesn’t, if he’s willing to help the Avatar instead of turning him over to Tobirama and King Hashirama—

“I have to master airbending first,” Obito says hoarsely. “It’s—it could take _years_ , Kisame.”

“Then I’ll stick around for years,” Kisame says, no hesitation at all in the words. He grins, cheerful and easy, and offers, “Might be some dissatisfied airbenders who’ve settled near the mountains.”

Obito remembers the temple where he met Ashura and Indra, the mountaintop, the valley below them. Hesitates, but—

“I know where we can go,” he says. “I just need a map.”

Kisame chuckles, rising to his feet. “That’s good enough for me,” he agrees.


End file.
